Alison Dodd
Soprano Saxophone
When she was just 4 years old, Alison's next door neighbours sold their piano to her family for £25. From those first tentative lessons, through plying in many orchestras ('cello and saxophone) and singing in several choirs, to finally finding her voice with the saxophone, every step of the journey has been worth it. She studied at the Royal College of Music and completed her undergraduate degree at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. She studied with Horch, Lara James and Gerard McChrystal, and performed in masterclasses with many great saxophonists, including Dr Paul Cohen, Fred Hemke, Lynn klock, Jo Murphy and Andy Scott. After success at the RWCMD concerto trials, Alison performed Dahl's "Concerto for Alto Saxophone" in St Teilo's church in March 2010, and later won the RWCMD Chamber Music Prize with her saxophone quartet. In the same year she became a recipient of a Prince of Wales Advanced Study in Music award, an award from the Elizabeth Evans Trust, and the support of the Richard Carne Trust. For the past two years she has enjoyed teaching an array of instruments to young people around Shropshire.
Tim Harper
Organ
Tim Harper is Assistant Director of Music at Birmingham Cathedral, where he accompanies and assists in the training of the Cathedral Choir, and directs the voluntary choirs, weekly recital series and Come & Sing events. Previously he was Organ Scholar successively at St Barnabas Church, Dulwich, Clare College Cambridge, Canterbury Cathedral and St. Paul's Cathedral. He read for a degree in Music and was a major prize winner at both ARCO and FRCO, including the RCO Coventry Cathedral award; he was subsequently awarded the silver medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. He has appeared live on both BBC TV and radio, including a broadcast shortly after his arrival at Birmingham.
Away from the cathedral, he acts as organist to the Blue Coat School, Harborne, and is in demand as recitalist, accompanist and continuo player, recently appearing with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, Ex Cathedra and the Birmingham Bach Choir. Other interests include jazz and cricket. He and his wife Charlotte have just had their first child, and in September he moves to Ripon Cathedral as Assistant Director of Music.
Brian Gulland
Bass singer and composer of Arches and Echoes
Brian started his musical career as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, where he took up the bassoon at the age of eight. After the Royal College of Music, fired by a growing interest in Medieval and Renaissance music, Brian performed regularly with well known early music ensembles such as Musica Reservata and London Pro Musica, playing shawms, crumhorns and recorders.
In 1972 he was a founding member of Gryphon, using the bassoon in a totally new way. Gryphon rapidly attracted a cult following, made five albums and enjoyed years of successful touring throughout Europe and north America. He has since played with such diverse acts as the Nolan Sisters, Ian Dury and the classical guitarist John Williams.
During recent years Brian has focused on composition, working in television, film and advertising, as well as arranging and producing other artists, from his mountain top home in North Wales.
Richard A Harvey
Composer of Responses
Since graduating from the Royal College of Music in 1972 at the age of 18, Richard Harvey has been a ubiquitous and diverse presence on the London music scene, not only as a prolific composer and conductor, but also as an exceptional virtuoso performer of almost 700 instruments from around the world - blown, plucked, keyed, bowed, beaten and programmed.
Richard's early forays into the professional world involved performing medieval and Renaissance era instruments with the early music ensemble Musica Reservata, and his own progressive rock and folk band Gryphon. Since then he has recorded for and collaborated with major contemporary composers including John Williams, Stanley Myers, Harry Gregson-Williams, Sir Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello and numerous others.
Richard has scored over 70 television and film projects and his talent as a composer of film and television music has been recognised with a British Academy Award and three Ivor Novello nominations. Richard has also made several classical albums, including a Classical Record of the Year, "Italian Recorder Concertos" (1982) which remains in Gramophone Magazine's Top 100. Furthermore he was commissioned to write "Concerto Antico"(1995) for classical guitar virtuoso John Williams, which has been recorded with the London Symphony orchestra and released by Sony, enjoying subsequent worldwide live performances.
Together with artist and writer Ralph Steadman, Richard was commissioned to compose and conduct a major Cathedral piece for the 1989 exeter Music Festival. The result was the eco-oratorio "Plague and the Moonflower", which has now been performed in numerous English Cathedrals and music festivals as far flung as Australia.
Richard lives in Surrey, where he pursues his love of cricket, and enjoys winters in Thailand, where he pursues his love of warmth, travel and adding to his massive collection of musical instruments.